Polling places throughout Utah will be checked for physical accessibility, according to Amy Naccarato, director of elections. She acknowledged that her office has received complaints about physical barriers at the polls.

"As elections officials, we're trained to run elections. We print ballots. We do voter registration," said Naccarato. "We are not experts in voter accessibility."

As such, Naccarato's office partnered with the Disability Law Center and the Utah State University Center for Persons with Disabilities to educate county clerks and other election officials from the state's 29 counties.

"We've learned about accommodating people with disabilities and making sure they can get into the polling places," Naccarato said. "We hope clerks also recognize how important this is."

Armed with a measuring tape, pocket level and other tools, Disability Law Center advocate Elizabeth McCoy showed election workers how to make their polling areas accessible to all. At the Capitol on Thursday afternoon, McCoy used the devices to measure parking spaces, determine if ramp slopes were too steep, weigh doors and measure the width of their thresholds.

Many of the polling places are in older buildings constructed without attention to the disabled visitor, said Davis County election coordinator Pat Beckstead. Beckstead said it is an uncomfortable task to ask property owners to renovate their facilities on behalf of voters.

"A lot of this stuff isn't new and it kind of amazes me that it is still a problem - but it is," McCoy responded. "The law requires temporary compliance to these standards [in polling locations], which means you can have temporary [parking] placards and [wheelchair] ramps that you can carry around."

Also Thursday, Lt. Gov. Gayle McKeachnie met with the officials in Bountiful to introduce new poll-worker training materials, including a video produced by the Utah State University Center for Persons with Disabilities.

The state Elections Office on Thursday also introduced Braille and audio formats of the Utah Voter Information Pamphlet, available in local libraries, county clerks' offices, online at http://www.elections. utah.gov and through the Library for the Blind and Disabled at 801-715-6789.

On Election Day, the Disability Law Center will have a hot line to assist anyone with questions about voting rights for people with disabilities at 1-800-490-4871.